The analyst expects growing DRAM prices will support revenue growth until at least until Q2 2013.

When it comes to vendors, Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix control 64.3% of the market, a -3% drop from Q4 2012. Samsung fails to benefit from the price rebound, with DRAM revenues dropping by -10% Q-o-Q due to commodity DRAM production reduced to less than 20% of total supply. However, thanks mobile DRAM output exceeding 40% (mobile DRAM remains the most profitable of memory products) Samsung still sees strong Q1 2013 margins despite revenue reductions.

The result of a 17-month long collective effort led by Micron, Samsung and Hynix, the technology stacks multiple memory dies on top of a DRAM controller. In turn DRAM connects to the controller via silicon Vertical Interconnect Access (VIA), a technology passing a vertical electrical wire through a silicon wafer.

The structure reduces the tasks the memory chip performs, providing an interface 15x faster than standard DDR3 DRAM while reducing power requirements by -70% according to the HMCC.

In total the specification provides for chips with up to 160GBps of aggregate bi-directional bandwidth-- slightly faster than the current 11GBps of aggregate bandwidth of DDR3 or 18-20GBps of DDR4.

Physicists at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory may have found the materials making the next generation of memory-- "magnetoelectrics" with linked magnetic and electric properties.

Magnetoelectric materials allow one to control magnetic behaviours via the application of electrical current, or vice versa. As physicist Philip Ryan puts it "electricity and magnetism are intrinsically coupled-– they’re the same entity. Our research is designed to accentuate the coupling between the electric and magnetic parameters by subtly altering the structure of the material."

The team at Argonne uses EuTiO3 (europium-titanium oxide), a compound whose atomic structure has a titanium atom inside an atomic "cage" of europium and oxygen (see picture). Compressing the cage (via thin EuTiO3 film) and applying voltage shifts the titanium, electrically polarising the compound and essentially changing the magnetic order of the material.

While the debut of a new PC OS historically results in double-digit DRAM shipment growth, IHS iSuppli predicts the Windows 8 launch will not follow the pattern-- global DRAM shipments will grow by only 8% Y-o-Y in Q4 2012.

The iSuppli totals also include DRAM shipments headed for tablet and smartphone use.

How come growth will remain lackluster? First off, Windows 8 requires no more DRAM than Windows 7 does, meaning it will not boost memory orders from OEMs.

The global DRAM market is on the way to recovery in Q2 2012 according to DRAMeXchange-- as average selling prices (ASPs) rebound and vendors near fully loaded capacities, industry revenues grow by 12% Q-o-Q.

When it comes to vendors, Samsung and SK Hynix retain the lead, holding nearly 70% of the total market between them. Samsung revenues are up by nearly 7% Q-o-Q, reaching $2.78bn with a slight decline in market share (3 Continue reading...

Micron is the first company to start volume production of Phase Change Memory (PCM) solutions-- with 45nm PCM technology ideal for mobile device applications.

The Micron PCM offering features 1Gb PCM plus 512Mb LPDDR2 in multichip packages. Currently available for feature phones, the company also plans to develop further on the technology with smartphone and tablet applications.

With ultrabooks and mobile devices going for quad-core processors, the future demands new memory-- LPDDR3, which should account for 20% of total mobile DRAM shipments by H2 2013 according to TrendForce's DRAMeXchange.

Making LPDDR3 attractive is higher bandwidth and efficiency than LPDDR2. The next Intel platform, Haswell, should support LPDDR3 once it hits the market in 2013.

DRAMeXchange predicts LPDDR3 will take over 50% of the global DRAM market (thus becoming mainstream) by H2 2014-- once Continue reading...